Hotchkiss School: 7 Former Staffers Sexually Abused Students

Courant File Photo

The Hotchkiss School in Salisbury has found that seven former faculty members sexually abused students primarily during the 1970s and 1980s, according to a report posted on its website late on Aug. 17, 2019.

The Hotchkiss School in Salisbury has found that seven former faculty members sexually abused students primarily during the 1970s and 1980s, according to a report posted on its website late on Aug. 17, 2019. (Courant File Photo)

Associated Press

Seven former faculty members of the Hotchkiss School in Salisbury sexually abused students for decades while administrators failed to take action, according to an independent investigation released by the boarding school.

The report, posted on the school’s website late Friday, found that 16 students had been subjected to unwanted contact from male faculty, including intercourse and unnecessary gynecological exams. It also documented instances of administrators failing to intervene when made aware of the sexual misconduct, which happened between 1969 and 1992.

“We are deeply and truly sorry for the enduring pain” of abuse victims, Hotchkiss officials said in a letter released Friday with the report.

The report is posted on the school website and includes ways people can contact investigators to report abuse or make other comments. Investigators interviewed more than 150 people, including 90 graduates and 40 current and former faculty and staff, and reviewed more than 200,000 pages of documents.

“To the survivors of abuse, we apologize from the bottom of our hearts,” wrote Jean Weinberg Rose, president of the school’s board of trustees, and Craig Bradley, the school’s current head. “The School did not live up to its commitment to protect you. We apologize with humility — understanding that words cannot measure our sadness and regret or erase the harm that you endured.”

The report states that, in the past, school administrators “inadequately responded to sexual misconduct by faculty members,” including not following up on complaints; keeping complaints private to protect the school’s public reputation; failing to document misconduct; not sharing information among school leaders about misconduct; and lacking resources and support for “concerned faculty and students who observed or experienced sexual misconduct.”

In some cases, school response was minimal, often with cautionary talks with an accused offender that did not come with a letter of reprimand or any other disciplinary action, the report states.

Hotchkiss, in the Lakeville section of town near the New York border, is the latest prestigious boarding school in New England to deal with allegations of pervasive sexual misconduct in recent years, including St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H., and St. George’s School in Middletown, R.I.

Hotchkiss officials said in the letter that they have notified law enforcement and other authorities about the report’s findings, including any subsequent employers of the former staffers, although the statute of limitations may have run out on many cases for potential criminal charges. They also stripped titles and recognitions bestowed on staffers involved and removed the names of former school heads who failed to act from any prizes, scholarships, endowments and spaces on campus, including their portraits.

And officials said Arthur White, who served as the headmaster from 1983 to 1989, has resigned from the board of trustees after cooperating with investigators.

The school opened the investigation in May 2016, and in February this year, changed investigators, contracting with the law firm Lock Lord, which compiled the 36-page report.

It said the misconduct happened primarily during the 1970s and 1980s and largely involved seven teachers and staffers: Christopher Carlisle, an English teacher from 1963 to 1982; Ronald Carlson, an English teacher from 1971 to 1981; George DelPrete, an athletic director and history teacher from 1970 to 2004; Dr. Peter Gott, the school’s medical director from 1972 to 2005; Albert Sly, a music teacher from 1950 to 1970 and again in 2008; Leif Thorne-Thomsen, a classics teacher from 1964 to 1992; and Damon White, an English teacher from 1983 to 2012.

The report says Thorne-Thomsen, Carlson, DelPrete and White declined through legal counsel to be interviewed by investigators. Carlisle, Gott and Sly have died since the incidents.

The report goes into lengthy detail about Thorne-Thomsen’s controversial tenure and the failures of administrators to act on allegations against him. Investigators said he engaged in sexual misconduct with female students over nearly two decades, targeting vulnerable girls who had experienced earlier sexual abuse.

“Thorne-Thomsen would ingratiate himself with them by sharing personal details about his life and coax them into believing that he was relying on them for emotional support,” the report said. “He used the trust these students placed in him as a teacher and mentor to engage in repeated acts of sexual misconduct.”

In the letter, the school said it will continue providing financial assistance to alumni victims “for current and/or past therapy costs relating to sexual misconduct during their time at the school.”

RAINN (Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network), is working with Hotchkiss to help abuse survivors. The letter asks people to contact RAINN directly at a Hotchkiss-specific hotline at 866-827-4029. Alumni living abroad should call 860-300-3389. More details about therapy referrals and reimbursement are on the school website.

The investigators said they found sexual misconduct complaints from the 1940s — three decades before the school became co-educational — into the 2010s, “although we did not receive any report from a current Hotchkiss student.”

The report also says numerous complaints that were deemed credible could not be substantiated sufficiently to allow the names of those involved to be included in the report. Those include instances of unwanted touching and kissing as well as a complaint that a science teacher photographed students naked in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s for a “posture study.”

“These photographs appear to be of somatotype [body type] research, which was common in universities in the mid-20th century but has since been largely debunked. We understand that the photographs of Hotchkiss students have been destroyed,” the Locke Lord report states.